DESERTED PALACES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 213, 8 September 1923, Page 14

DESERTED PALACES.

WEST END IN DECAY. ! MANSIONS TO LET, Although the London social season i> ' in full swing, and "society"' is supposed to be in town, there is scarcely a street, or equare in Mayfair where one does not peo mansions outside of which are boards notifying: "To be Lot" (English estate agents always use the optimistic "be") or ''To be Sold" ! writes the London correspondent oi .Melbourne "Herald".i. And all thp indications are that thee houses have been waiting for tenants or purchasers for pome time, their shabby frontages and dusty windows providing unpleasant breaks in the vistas off newly-painted doors, brightly polished door-knobs, and spot- ■ less -windows screened with silk or lace. These big houses are no longer re- ' qcured for residential purposes. The cogt tt iheir upkeep is beyond the means of their present owners or former tenants, and few of those "'.New Rich" of whom -we hear so much Tcveal any desire to spend the large sums and take on the worry (complicated by the servant problem and all kinds of plain and fancy legal questions) involved in becoming the occupier of a palace, built in far-off days when £.'.(ioi> a year possessed possibly live or six. or even more, times its present purchasing power, and j thousands of young women who now i eeek employment ill shops, factories. and -warehouses were available as domestic helpers. Whether you require a fnooo Georgian mansion or a couple of furnished rooms suitable for the us'- of a well-to-do Jia.-helor. you will have very little difficulty in obtaining them in the West End us long as your bankers' references are i satisfactory. If you are searching for a £4, fo, or £6 a week flat in some of the less 'fashionable parts of London's western area, house agents ■will treat , you with a certain polite indifference, since they well know that if you don't feel disposed to take the place there are a dozen other persons who will; but ; mention to an agent that you want a : house or fla-t in Portman .Square, Berkeley £quare, or Grosvenor .Square, or one "of the spacious avenues of Belgravia and 'ho will welcome you like a. longJost brother, WORSE TO COME. But, bad as things are, worse is to come. In nearly all West End house property at least four persons are directly interested. There is the original ground landlord, more often than not a person of title; the building owner, to j ■whom a building lease at a nominal rent . has been granted; the owner of the ■ improved, or leasehold, ground rent; and the owner of the lease, and even this last person ia not necessarily the occupier of the house. It is when these ground leases fall in, as a great number of them will do in the next few years, that the character of property in the most fashionable parts of the West End will have to undergo a very marked change, or the place itself will take on the aspect of a deserted village. Most of the property concerned was disposed of by the ground landlords on a 99 years' lease, and as practically thi whole of Belgravia and that part of the West End that lies north of Oxford Street and Hyde Park was built from 00 to 95 years ago, Ihennftjority of these ground leases will expire in the near future. When a ground lease expires, not only do the house and all improvements revert to the ground landlord, hut the owner of the lease has to make good '" dilapidations," wliieh often involves a very considerable expenditure. The probability ia that when tlm Belgravia leases expire the landlord* may find most of these houses throv t on their hands, which is pretty much that has happened in the older district of Mayfair. Admittedly, a ground landlord is a person for whom the average citizen finds it rather difficult to feel sympathy. Australians who are the poseessors of freehold may think it iniquitous that the Duke of Plaza-Toro or some such person, one of whose ancestors, ninety-odd years ago, granted someone a lease of a vacant piece of ground, should now, merely through effluxion of time, find himself possessed of a magnificent mansion such as only a. millionaire could (but probably •wouldn't) build at the present day; but there are ground landlords who consider that they have been by no means kindly treated by fate. One does not know whether to weep most bitterly over the hard lot of the Duke of Plazo-Toro or the vanished glories of the West End.